Interview Interview with Metro Metro

Remember when I wrote about the Board Game Olympics, and how my team came in second place because another team cheated?*

I recently had the chance to sit down with Ed, Will, and Brady of Metro Metro,** the guys behind not only the Board Game Olympics, but also a slew of other NYC events including the annual Metropolitan Odyssey scavenger hunt. The interview was funny, but please don’t expect to learn anything useful.

Everybody’s Invited!: What is the overarching philosophy of Metro Metro?

Will: The official tagline of Metro Metro is “Playing is better than working.” People in NYC spend a lot of time working, but you need to get out and explore the city and have some fun once in a while. A common theme with our events is that individuals and teams often need to interact with one another or with strangers, so it’s a great way to meet people.

These people are having fun at a Metro Metro event. Too bad they hate America

EI!: <GooglesFeuerbach. Learns something.> You guys are friendsand business partners. What will be the title of your tell-all book that documents the highs and lows of this journey you’ve taken together?

Ed: The title of our book will be “The Obama Wars” and Bob Woodward is already slated to write it.

Will: Actually, the book is not going to be a book, but more of a flow diagram explaining how we all know each other.

EI!: Interesting. My blog has a strong social justice bent,*** so I’m sure my readers will be curious to know how Metro Metro events contribute to a better society. Do the events in any way right historical wrongs, or inspire participants to take a moral stand?

Brady: We build community, reveal history (some of it even true), and expose spelling errors in public spaces. Some of our events involve charities, whether it’s fundraising or donating leftover goods. Also, we reduce, reuse, and recycle a lot of our old jokes.

Ed: And, while it may be a somewhat controversial stance, all of Metro Metro’s proceeds have always gone directly to paying reparations to African Americans for years of slavery and injustice. Our calculations put that bill at a few trillion, so we’re about halfway there.

EI!: That’s fascinating. Do you have a vision for Metro Metro’s future? Does it involve hovercraft?

Will: I think it would be good to explain how Metro Metro really operates. We think of lots of ideas for events and develop less than 1% of those ideas. We do events when we have the time. We drink a lot of beer. I would say the future consists of us trying to keep this going without upsetting the delicate balance of this finely tuned machinery.

Ed: Metro Metro’s future has always involved hovercraft. But so does Metro Metro’s past. In our incorporating documents the word “hovercraft” was used 18 times. Those papers were then signed on a hovercraft and notarized by a hovercraft.

EI!: Any upcoming events? What are the prizes?

Ed: Each holiday season we throw our annual Holiday Office Party. Guests are encouraged to dress as their favorite office stereotype or character and we party the night away with prizes for Employee of the Year and Twenty Years of Service. Last year’s Celebrity Death Bag prize featured Patrick Swayze. In addition to that, we are always busy with our monthly Board Game Olympics. We also work all year round on our Metropolitan Odyssey, which takes place each Spring. Aside from that, we keep busy with corporate events and developing any new ideas that strike our fancy.

Brady: Other events appear as we think of them, or as someone writes in and says, “You know what would be really cool to do (and theoretically easy to organize): This!” and then we do whatever “This” is. Prizes appear as we think of them, or as someone writes in and says, “Here is a fantastic prize for you to give out,” and then we give out whatever “Here” is. So, it varies event to event. Each prize is guaranteed to be life-changing, though, and often death-defying.

* Not true. We were really bad at Memory, but, in our defense, Memory is not a board game.